I came out to you on a school day

I gave you that final part of me

And I can hear it in your voice as you spit out your words:

"Disgusting." "Disgraceful." "Horrid."

I'm a disappointment to the family,

Being passed up by the troublemakers across the street,

I'm a living oxymoron.

I'm making the worst mistake.

It's going to kill me.

And apparently, I don't care if it does.

 

Now let me fill you in on a little secret of mine.

I'm already dying.

Dying from a mind that's being overcrowded by random thoughts,

Suffocated by emotion,

I'm getting stabbed in the back by my insecurities,

And all you keep saying is that it'll get better.

It'll get easier to the darkness go, but it doesn't.

A person never loses something like this,

It just gets a little easier to live with.

 

And here's the other thing.

I'm not doing this to spite you,

I'm not lashing out

Or fighting back

This is not a choice.

Because who in their right mind would pick

Oppression over expression?

Like, have you realized exactly how scared I get 

Walking down the street in broad daylight.

It's terrifying.

 

And yet here I am,

Trying to stand up for what I believe in,

But my words just keep getting lost in the storm 

That caused us to drift apart,

And you wonder why I don't talk to you anymore?

Because every time I try,

I just get held under your waves of emotion,

Until I'm drowning from my own tears.

 

And I'm sorry you don't like it.

But I never asked you to accept this,

I just asked you to respect it.

Respect the fact that it's different from you 

But this is my choice.

So you can still love me.

You can still hug me.

Call me your baby,

Because I'm gay

Not contagious

Because surprise.

This isn't an illness.

 

I don't need to be cured of something 

That doesn't exists as a sickness

This is not a sickness.

I'm not going to die.

At least not from this.

But I need you to realize that when I die,

I want to be buried in a button-down and a bow-tie

I am an artform

Made of broken words and tear stained pages

And I don't want to go back to using my blood as paint

And my razors as brushes

I am done fighting against this hate.

I'm done.

 

So I've decided.

That I will live my life looking through God's eyes

And not just rose colored lenses,

Because I need this to be a true reality.

And here's what I see:

Me.

With my beautiful wife

Having three kids and a couple dogs by my side

And hopefully you'll still be in my life.

Because I am a part of God's temple

So please,

Stop trying to tear my towers down.